Monster Music & Movies

June 11, 2021

 

Happy Friday and Record Store Day Eve!

 

Ok, you may have heard or read we were changing the RSD line up rules, doing a random drawing at 6 am to determine where the line starts, to discourage people from camping out and essentially getting an unfair advantage in case they were eBay flippers, which certainly happens.  After much discussion, WE ARE NO LONGER DOING THIS.

 

We feel that this potentially causes more problems than it addresses. The eBay flipper problems we have are relatively minor and will instead be handled on an individual, case-by-case basis.  Which we have already done.

 

So instead, on the morning of Record Store Day, tomorrow, we open at 8 am and you may get here whenever you wish.  However, we will not allow anyone to bring additional chairs for someone other than themselves, who then shows up at the last minute.  No holding of place in line, in other words, and no placing your flag in the dirt and leaving for a few hours and coming back later.  Common sense stuff, right?  Once in line, stay in line, except to visit the portajohn that we do have on site.

 

We have roughly 250 different RSD releases in stock.  Unfortunately, we are unable to share with you how many of each title we have in stock, for a variety of reasons.  Heck, some stuff is still showing up.  Quantities are limited, as you should know, so as a result we must limit you to 1 per title per person.  If you bring two copies of a single title up to the counter, we will put one of them back out on the shelf.  It’s only fair.

 

We will allow 50 people in the store at a time.  When one checks out, another is allowed in.  It’ll go pretty smoothly.

 

Starting at 1 pm, all remaining RSD inventory will be available for online purchase at https://monstermusicsc.com/Genre/695402

 

In addition to all the exclusive new releases available, we’ll have a storewide sale on everything else!  Stop by and take advantage of 20% off all new CDs, DVDs, BluRays & vinyl (does not include RSD releases), 30% off all used, 10% off turntables & vinyl accessories, 30% off shirts, posters, Funko Pops and other kitschy pop culture items!

 

Weather permitting, we’ll have a sidewalk sale full of $0.25 used LPs and CDs.

 

Any questions, message us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, or reply to this email, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.  Good luck!

 

 

 

March 20, 2021

 

It’s been a minute since we’ve written.  We’ve been pretty busy, and that’s a good thing.  Today, though, it’s hard to miss the anniversary of the last day we were open for business before the COVID shutdown prevented us from unlocking our doors to the public.

 

Starting March 20th last year, our doors remained locked.  We showed up to work, got a few projects caught up on, which we really needed to do, and tried working forward our next steps.  We put as much inventory up online as possible, did live Facebook and Instagram sales, and spent not an insignificant amount of time working on our website in an attempt to provide a more user-friendly platform to shop on.

 

You see, we in the record store world had seen this movie before.  We suffered through the big box wars of the 90s, where Walmarts and Best Buys sold CDs for below wholesale cost to get people in the door, driving oodles of mom & pop record stores out of business.  Then Napster made it so easy for people to get whatever music they wanted, indie record stores in college towns shut down practically overnight.  Then the ipods and the digital download….  Really it’s a bit of an unpleasant memory for us – but WE SURVIVED IT ALL.  They said it couldn’t be done, they said record stores were dead, but we believed in what we were doing, and by golly we were not going to allow some piss-ant pandemic to shut us down.

 

Well, okay, that’s an unfair statement, and I’m trying to be cute.  Obviously a pandemic changes everything.  The point is, over the span of two decades, out of necessity we developed the mettle it took to dodge and weave, adapt and live to fight another day.  If there’s ever any industry that was in a good position to thrive during a pandemic, it’s indie record stores.  And that’s exactly what has happened, at least up to now.

 

Fast forward one year, and what we’ve witnessed is nothing short of incredible.  First of all, during shutdown, you guys really came through for us.  Those of you who were in a financial position to support your favorite businesses ordered merchandise from us in unheard of numbers.  And us, being the grizzled veterans we are, were smart enough to realize that when something is working, do more of it. 

 

When we reopened, we were immediately busy.  And despite our fears that “well, next month people will stop showing up,” it never happened.  The Record Store Day “Drops” were huge online events for us.  And the first three months of 2021, measured against pre-pandemic comps last year, we’re blowing last year’s numbers away.

 

And we just have to say we’re really, really grateful to you.  You made this happen for us.  And we have renewed optimism about what we can accomplish in the future.  Stay tuned, we have a lot of cool things we’re working on we hope to share with you soon.  I know we keep saying that, but some things just take a little while longer than expected.

 

Anyway, thanks for being there for us.  We won’t forget.

August 21, 2020

 

In lieu of Record Store Day 2020, the previously scheduled RSD releases will be released on the following "RSD Drop" days: August 29, September 26, & October 24.

Why? To put it simply, Record Store Day is an international event, and it is impossible to be conducted in a safe manner all across the country this year, forget about around the world. Some stores aren't able to be open, and many who are can't finance such a large inventory outlay right now. Plus, a lot of folks just don't feel safe going out in crowds.

But the RSD releases were already manufactured, and they need to get into fans' hands.

Every store is going to do it a little differently this year. And this is a puzzle that is NOT EASY to solve.

Here's how we're going to do it, at least the first time out:

Rule #1 - the safety of our staff and our customers is more important than any revenue we generate for the day. Masks are required inside and in line outside, and gloves & hand sanitizer are available and encouraged. Physical distancing is a must, and we just cannot have jockeying for releases.  Be considerate and careful!

We will open at 8:00 am for sales of RSD releases ONLY. The browseable area of the store will be restricted to only RSD titles and we will let in 10 people at a time. Customers will have 15 minutes to make their RSD purchase decisions. Limit one per title per person, as always.

At roughly 10 am, or whenever the line subsides, we will quickly rearrange the store to its previous format, allowing browsing of the entire store, at which time we will resume a 25-customer capacity. Please maintain 6 feet between yourself and others.. We will be offering 20% off all new & used CD, DVD & vinyl (excepting RSD releases), as well as turntables & vinyl accessories, and Funko Pops. We close at 7 pm.

 

Unlike other Record Store Days, we are allowed to start selling the RSD releases online starting at 1 pm.  While we may choose a few items to make available on our website or Discogs, we feel like it does not make sense for us to make our entire RSD inventory available online.  We will not be taking phone orders or Facebook or Instagram orders, not before Sunday.  We WILL be making social media announcements about what titles we have remaining and what are sold out.

We considered several different scenarios before settling on this one.  It’s not perfect, but we considered it the best of a bad lot.  We fully expect that not everyone’s going to be happy, but we just hope folks take it in the spirit of the times.  Like you, we’re just trying to make the best out of what we have to work with.  Record Store Day Proper is a bust this year, as we obviously can’t have the festival atmosphere, the live bands, food trucks, etc.  But we can still get you some cool records. 

 

We hope to learn from this and make it better next time out, on September 26th.  If you have any questions of comments, feel free to leave ‘em & we’ll do our best to answer them.  As always, thanks for your patronage, your understanding & willingness to work with us through all of this!

June 3, 2020

 

Where to begin?

 

We frequently talk about the record industry in our blogs, because we find it pretty interesting and think you would too.  We have had unending trials and tribulations over the last thirty years and are generally pretty vocal about how screwed up we consider the music biz to be sometimes. 

 

One year ago around this time, the record store world was embroiled in the worst industry fuck-up we’d really ever seen, pardon our French.  In an effort to streamline operations, all the major label distribution was routed out of a single warehouse facility, Direct Shot, and it was a colossal fail.  Stores weren’t getting new releases on time, or even within three weeks of release date in many instances. Catalog orders were taking over a month to ship.  Orders were getting lost.  Orders were shipped to the wrong places or packed so poorly that everything inside was damaged. 

 

Stores lost business.  Customers, returning over and over, not finding what they were looking for, started concluding it was the stores’ fault.  Scans on new release sales correspondingly fell, and artists and managers naturally concluded that physical product just wasn’t in demand anymore.  So much of what we’d worked our asses off over the last ten years was deteriorating.

 

For us, as stores, after everything we’d been through over the last three decades, how could it possibly get any worse?

 

Fast forward into March of 2020, and we have our answer.  The pandemic shut us all down, and with it enough of a revenue stream to keep us afloat.  Congress’ early efforts to make funding available to small businesses was absconded with by the big banks and major corporations.  If we hadn’t been able to reopen to the public when we did, we could well have bitten the dust.  We’re still scrambling to get healthy again.  We would rather go through 10 Direct Shots than this.  How could it possibly get any worse?

 

Murder of our citizens at the hands of police, protests in our cities that are met with military force, riots, looting and destruction of small businesses, that’s how.  Who cares about vinyl?  In the face of that, I don’t.  It’s just polyvinyl chloride; it matters zilch.

 

As a business, how are we supposed to respond?  I don’t fully know, but let me tell you this up front: for our purposes, social media is an advertising vehicle for us, and to have a little fun along the way.  For us to post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter our solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement would rightly be construed as blowing our own bugle, drawing attention to ourselves rather than the people we claim to support. 

 

Yesterday witnessed an effort within the music industry known as Blackout Tuesday, a day for anyone and everyone in the industry to post a black screen to denote solidarity with our black citizens who have been marginalized, terrorized and even killed, under circumstances that would clearly not be likely to happen to a white American. 

 

Yet the effort was not without criticism.  Those who posted black screens with Black Lives Matter hashtags were taken to task for making it more difficult for the BLM messaging to register because it came so watered down and diffuse.  And there was certainly healthy cynicism of an industry that for practically an entire century has taken advantage of and profited unduly from black artists, who marked the occasion by choosing to take the day off, as though that was somehow fitting atonement. 

 

So back to this – how are we, as a public facing business and well-intentioned staff supposed to adequately address the problems within our communities, country, and close brethren?  And be taken seriously?

 

We made the conscious choice to go silent on Blackout Tuesday, except for a callout for folks to visit https://www.theshowmustbepaused.com/ and read it over & think about what they saw.  (That’s the site that the founders of Blackout Tuesday posted in an effort for the music industry to make a statement of support.  We still encourage you to take a look.) 

 

Before we continue, I want to be crystal clear that we consider the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade – all just within the last few weeks! – to be abhorrent and inexcusable.  The continuing list of black Americans killed at the hand of police is absurd, but beyond that the circumstances surrounding those killings, the cover ups, the turning off of bodycams, the failure of appropriate responses by police chiefs and mayors, we find disgusting.  If you disagree, save your arguments for another day, because a lot of people have clearly had enough; you owe it to your fellow Americans to listen and learn.  I don’t want to get into an argument about whether one or another of them might have been justified, that’s really beside the point.  The point is that people feel that their rights as citizens are not honored, to the extent that it requires protest, demonstration, and civil disobedience & even rioting and you’re still not listening to them.  I hear some people say “the killings are awful but we shouldn’t have rioting & looting.”  Can you not hear yourself?  How about “the rioting & looting are awful but we really shouldn’t have killings.”  Can you get behind resetting to those priorities?

 

Consider us to be on record how we feel about the current situation.

 

But are our personal feelings of any concern to you?  I don’t know, and I don’t want to assume that they are.  But we are human, we are Americans, and we’re hurting just as most everyone must be.  The current state of affairs in our nation is simultaneously simple and complicated, and the point of this missive isn’t really to delve into all of that.  This is just to say that part of us really doesn’t know what to say.

 

But I will say this.  Our North Star is our collection of inherent personal values that guide us every day.  We have always, every day we’ve been in business, tried to treat all our customers fairly, with respect and understanding, to treat them as we would want to be treated.  We strive to be a positive influence to those in our circle.  And we try to look for opportunities to make a positive impact in our community. 

 

We fail in those efforts more often that we would like.

 

I will also say this, because it’s very important to me.  In the early-mid 90’s, when record stores were being hammered by Walmarts and Best Buys selling CDs for below our cost, and customers in droves were only too happy to march over there to buy new release CDs, our black customers were very loyal and kept buying music from us.  It was more important to them that they had a store that understood their tastes in music than that they save a few bucks.  They earned my undying respect and appreciation. 

 

Ok, that’s nice but so what?  Back to what are we supposed to do?  Well, we are going to continue to be respectful and treat others fairly as we always do.  And we’re going to shut up and pay attention, and try to learn some new things and maybe put into practice something new that we don’t even know what it is yet.  We are going to continue, and even redouble our efforts to keep the big picture in mind, of making a meaningful difference to the community that already supports us so well.

 

This is really difficult in a climate where the nature of our business is already at risk from so many difficulties.  But we’re going to try.

 

Everyone wants to make a difference in the world, but it’s really easy to get bogged down & frustrated & lose your way. 

 

I think if your personal goal is to change the world, that’s a pretty big task and you’re probably going to fail.  For me, with the benefit of hindsight in my own life, the response that makes sense is to establish clear ideals – not goals exactly – of the way you want to see the world, and work to change not it, but yourself.  If you change yourself, possibly you can help to change those around you that are in a similar place in their lives.  And if you collectively change yourselves, perhaps you can make meaningful change in your communities.  And at some point, maybe your work gains critical mass and the snowball starts feeding itself.

 

In 1994, American Tibetan Buddhist and ordained nun Pema Chodron published the book Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living.  We are going to heed the advice and start where we are.  I don’t know what, if anything, we’ll accomplish, but we are not going to do nothing. 

 

That is our statement.  I am putting this out into the universe with honesty & sincerity, and truly hope my intentions are true and my actions meaningful.

 

Galen Hudson

Monster Music & Movies

 

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March 27, 2020

 

Happy Friday, if I may be so bold.

 

Leaving the store Thursday, we were all more than a little drained.  The life went out of us a bit towards the end of the day.  We were noticeably quieter, slower, and even a little dazed-looking.  I felt it myself.  I asked one of my staff on the way out, what happened today that caused us to crash so badly? 

 

He replied, “without customers in the store, it’s kind of like just working in a warehouse.  Looking at the same people, doing the same stuff over and over.”

 

“Aha!” was my reaction.  “So the customers make the job worthwhile, don’t they?”

 

It’s true.  This week, since we closed the store to the public last Saturday, we have had simple and singular focuses.  In addition to taking phone and online orders, meeting people at the door for hand-offs and shipping a ton of packages, we’ve also decided to conduct a much-needed physical inventory.  Never a simple or enjoyable task.  We’re still receiving orders, too, and yesterday’s prepping and hawking of today’s new releases meant calling several customers who’d preordered items & figuring out how to connect with them. 

 

Like you, we’re trying to figure out a path forward, to learn to adjust to a new reality. 

 

I am fortunate in that I don’t let myself be swayed by emotion too much.   I remember well as a youngster at an amusement park being freaked out about to hop aboard a roller coaster, but recognizing the crowds of people who just disembarked from their trip around.  I figured I had a pretty good chance of making it all the way around & back, that I’d probably have heard about it if they’d actually lost anyone along the way.  

 

It takes a lot to phase me, in other words, to distract me from the long view.  As awful, unbelievable, preposterous and unacceptable our current situation in the world is, I am reminded of stories my mother told me.  She was born in 1933 in rural Virginia, a child of the depression and World War II.   She wore the same pair of shoes for three years.  They were issued ration tokens back then to exchange for meat, or sugar, or gasoline.  For an entire decade and a half, millions of our countrymen & women suffered through hardships we cannot today fully understand.

 

What we are experiencing now will last months and months.  But not years and years.  Jobs will come back.  Businesses will bounce back, as will the economy, more quickly than following the 2008 economic collapse.  And the blight known as COVID-19 will be stopped, there is no doubt about that.  There will be hardship and unease in the meantime.  I’ve certainly made an effort to streamline and limit my own obligations at this point.  The short-term future of the store is certainly in doubt.  But not the long-term future.  Regardless of what is to come in the weeks ahead, Monster WILL remain.  We will reopen to the public; we will not be going out of business, not a chance.

 

In fact, we’re looking at this as a big opportunity.  Not only can we afford to stick around for a couple of weeks & get some long-delayed projects done, we’re also taking this time to ramp up our online sales to a dramatic (we hope) degree.  We’ve been selling online for over a decade, but we’ve never been able to devote the time and mental energy to juice it up a notch and get it to grow to a fully self-sustaining enterprise unto itself. 

 

But as we’ve seen, over the years, the sands of the industry shift, and along with it customers’ shopping habits, part of why we’ve been successful is we’ve been able to shift too.

 

And things are continuing to change, aren’t they?  We will, no doubt, come out of this crisis a changed country, a changed people.  In significant ways, changed for the better, I’ll wager.  I’ll say this, the temperament of my friends & neighbors has been very different this week.  Folks are enjoying being at home with their families, appreciating simple things like going for walks with their dogs – I know I am.  And cooking new things at home.  Playing games, reading, catching up on bingeworthy shows, and (of course) listening to records. 

 

I have no doubt that, as a result of all of this, people will be purchasing much more online than they did before.  Meals, groceries, and certainly records.  So we plan to be there to meet them.

 

For us, this is a work in progress, and it’ll take us some time to get it to where we want.  It would be ever so helpful if you’d browse our webstore at www.monstermusicsc.com, or look at our Discogs listings.  And give us some feedback!  What works, and more importantly what doesn’t?  Is our webstore easily browsable?  Is the checkout process seamless?

 

Having our full store inventory, new and used, available online is a huge task.  But some version of that is our goal.

 

Hey, all gift cards on our website are now on sale!  For the time being, you can purchase a Monster gift card at a 10% discount.  That would sure help us with the cash flow as we swim through a severely limited income stream. 

 

We’re SO appreciative of all of those that have reached out and spent money with us.  And it’s actually been a lot of fun to interact with you in these new, roundabout ways, & try to find all kinds of funky stuff for you.  And so many nice comments!  We’re really all one big, close-knit community, and it’s exciting to feel us grow closer together.  Definitely one of the positives to arise from all of this.

 

So today is new release day, and although you can’t come in and browse the store in person (and we've had to curtail curbside pickup), you can definitely browse our webstore, or just call us if you know what you want – 843 571-4657.  We’ve got the new Pearl Jam, Brian Fallon, The Weeknd (new last week but arrived late), In This Moment, Parkway Drive, Dua Lipa, Waxahatchee, Lukas Nelson & the Promise of the Real, along with archival recordings of the Germs, Hendrix’ Band of Gypsies, Kanye West’s “Jesus is King” LP, Dashboard Confessional Best of LP (cream colored!), Bon Iver’s Blood Bank EP 10th Anniversary, and even a Mojo Nixon box set. 

 

We’re gonna keep the new releases rolling in over the next several weeks, too.  It’s always helpful when you place preorders or let us know in advance what you’d like us to get for you. 

 

So let’s keep the dialog flowing.  We’re here for you, let us know how we can serve you.  If you’re in a position to help keep our staff employed by making a purchase, even a small one, it makes a difference. 

 

If online shopping isn’t really your thing, keep your eye on our Facebook and Instagram feeds, as we’re putting new stuff up there every day.  If you see something you want, you can charge by phone, PayPal us, or hell, send cash by carrier pigeon, we don’t care.

 

And again, for the time being, we are offering FREE SHIPPING on all (no minimums!) domestic orders! 

 

That’s it for now y’all.  Thanks for reading, be safe out there, and let’s talk soon, ok?

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March 20, 2020

 

It’s Friday, March 20th, and we’ve been open all week and actually surprised and grateful at the customer turnout.  It’s been slow, but not completely anemic.

 

However, as time goes on and we learn more and watch events transpire, it becomes bountifully obvious that the proper thing to do in this difficult time is to close our doors to the public.  This was not an easy decision for a variety of reasons, but it’s clear it’s the right thing to do.  There’s just too great a risk, too much to lose, should we become a vector for the virus.  We want to avoid you becoming sick, certainly we don’t want our staff to get sick, and some staff members have older family members, and it’s just a bad situation no matter how you look at it.

 

Part of what makes this such a difficult situation is we don’t want to leave our staff high and dry.  They’re dependent on their incomes, of course, just like anyone else, & as soon as our revenue drops off a cliff, we have some difficult choices to make. 

 

So we’ve decided, at a minimum, to keep the employees working at their normal number of hours for the next couple of weeks and get busy catching up on various projects around the store.  We have tons of old projects, so it’ll be like the ramp up to opening a new store.  With any luck, in a couple weeks’ time, maybe we’ll feel safe opening back up.

 

WE WILL STILL BE HERE FOR YOU, 10-6 Monday-Saturday & 12-5 Sunday, taking phone orders, taking our online sales platforms into hyperdrive, expanding online listings and increasing marketing of such.  And that’s where you come in. 

 

For those of you who were fortunate enough to not be financially affected and can afford to keep shopping as you normally would, and maybe you even have more time now to listen to music & watch movies, we have a variety of methods for you to continue to shop with us right now.

 

 

We’ll be putting together some grab bags of used DVDs, CDs & LPs that we’ll sell for cheap.  We’re going to be putting TONS of new inventory on our Discogs and Amazon stores.  Keep an eye on our Instagram for cool records we'll be offering up.  If you are in a position to make a purchase from us, you’re helping keep our staff employed. 

 

Again, Monster is NOT going out of business.  When all of this subsides enough for shops to open back up (I can’t believe I’m even writing this), we WILL be back.  The length of time that takes, however, has a lot to say about how long the staff can stay afloat.  We’re pretty crafty and resilient, and we’re going to find some silver linings out of all of this, but this is a very tricky situation for all of us. 

 

We’ve been trying to thread the needle all week, and now is the time for us to close the doors to the public.  Keep an eye on our social media, & please reach out to us & let us know how we can serve you until next we meet.

  

Thank you,

All the staff at Monster

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November 22, 2019

Busy times!  Can you relate?

 

I don’t think I’ve talked to any working person lately who isn’t swamped, or feels that way at least.  That’s the way we feel here, with Black Friday and Christmas coming on.  Good problems to have you might say!  Yes, we can’t complain.  It’s fun year-round at the record store, but this time of year definitely gives us a psychic boost.

 

If you’re swamped & don’t feel like you have the time to jaunt over to the record store – maybe just buy it online or stream it – take a second look at your motivations, because we need your business more than ever right now.  It’s been a challenging year, and the challenges continue.

 

We survived the dawning of Napster, the ipod, digital downloads, streaming, pretty much everything that’s come our way in this industry and lived to tell about it.  But what we’re witnessing in the record store world right now is unbelievable, frustrating, infuriating, and very problematic for our business. 

 

We’ve mentioned it before, and you may already be aware to some extent.  Back in March, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, one of the big three major label distribution companies, merged their inventory into the same warehouse that was already distributing CDs and vinyl from Sony Music, Universal, and some indies.  Chaos ensued – they were not equipped to handle the workload – and it hasn’t been the same sense.  The end result to us is that we aren’t always getting new releases on time, catalog reorders are taking four weeks or more to arrive, and some basic catalog has been out of stock with the majors for three, four months or more.  Hey, problems occur and not everything comes off smoothly right away, we get that, but we’ve been dealing with this situation for a solid eight months now.

 

How this affects you is that sometimes you’ll come in on a new release Friday looking for something, and it’s not on the shelf, because we haven’t received it yet.  In some cases, they haven’t shipped them out to anyone yet.  It’s become so bad that Amazon has removed all “buy” buttons from WEA new releases, as they’re having the same problems we are. 

 

In case you missed it, there was a Billboard article about it a few months ago, and Tegan and Sara closed their online shop due to the same problems.

 

Think about your own workplace and the industry you’re in.  How would your business, your industry handle such a supply-chain problem?  Suppose Detroit couldn’t meet manufacturing demand due to a problem supplying necessary auto parts?  Suppose hospitals couldn’t get necessary supplies in a timely fashion?  It boggles the mind, but this has become the new normal in our industry.

 

Here’s how you can help.  Keep shopping with us.  If we don’t have what you’re looking for, let us know.  It’s very possibly due to this very problem.  Don’t think we’re being slack.  And most of all, please be patient while we muddle through this situation that is completely outside of our control.  We are optimistic that a corner will be turned shortly after the first of the year, and in 2020 record stores can resume more streamlined operations and flow of inventory, with fewer out of stocks and missed opportunities.  We appreciate your understanding, and thanks again for being the reason we're here.

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June 14, 2019

 

It’s a funny business, ours.  The twentieth century brought with it unprecedented technology to create, record and reproduce music for the masses, and an industry was born.  Post-war demographic and societal changes, along with continued technological advances and studio knob-twiddling, produced a generation or more worth of popular music that today we consider essential, classic, unique and a defining point of who we are. 

 

However, a lot of said music is hitting the 50-year old mark.  Is there music made today to replace it?  That’s debatable and not the point of this missive, so dear reader can ponder that on his/her own.  But fifty years from now, what’s the state of things?  Are Lennon/McCartney, Hendrix, Dylan and the like going to be looked at in centuries to come the way we think of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms today?  Or will the names even register a blip?

 

Today is the day we need to start seriously considering preserving the music we consider important for the generations to come.  Why?  I’ll tell you.  Ever try making a photocopy of a photocopy?  Doesn’t work out that well, does it?  At its essence, that’s what will have to happen in the years to come, as original source materials are being lost.  Digital files of those recordings are a frozen moment that don’t represent or allow a full, true understanding of the original recordings.  When the Beatles went back a few years ago to repress their catalog on vinyl, they were able to apply today’s technology to the original master tapes, remixing them and thus yielding a fresh new understanding of their albums.  Without the original masters, that ability is lost.

 

And lost for all eternity is exactly where an estimated 500,000 master recordings are, following news that the Universal Studios fire of 2008 was worse than reported.  Recordings by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Chuck Berry, Patsy Cline, Elton John, the Eagles and so many more were among them.  Decca, Impulse, Chess archives were decimated.  Krist Novoselic says Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was likely included.  Questlove says the Roots albums “Illadelph Halflife” and “Do You Want More” will never be repressed for this reason.  (Way to go, Universal.  Archives in the Library of Congress would withstand a nuclear blast.  Just sayin’.)

 

If you have original records by those artists, hang on to them.  Those are likely the best archives in existence of their music.  And will retain their value!  If you have a 2009 or later vinyl press of them, it’s most likely from the digital (CD) master.  A copy of a copy.  So the record store’s place in society remains important and assured.  We will continue to amass, curate and sell new and used records, as we believe that music isn’t just for now, it’s forever.  The vinyl record, right now, is still the most reliable data storage vehicle (if you want to look at it like that) for historical audio. 

 

When people say we’re so lucky to have been alive at the same time as David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Dr. John and so forth, that’s not just sentimentality.  We lived through the music LIVE.  So much from this point forward will be a memory only.  We are but sands in the winds of the universe.  A sobering thought, no?  Treat your vinyl records with care.

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April 3, 2019

 

Ten days out from the 11th annual Record Store Day!  We assume that everyone knows what that means, but certainly that’s not the case, as more and more people get into vinyl every day.  Record Store Day is an international celebration of the independent record store and its place in the community.  Participating bands and record companies have created hundreds of vinyl releases exclusively for indie record stores for the day. 

 

Historically, record stores have been a place of discovery that’s been immensely important for music consumers and connoisseurs and musicians themselves.  A lot of bands you love met each other in record stores.  A lot of married couples did, too.  With the digital age, a lot of that has been lost, and this is an opportunity to take some of that back, reclaim what was once ours (and yours).  And from the response we’ve seen over the last eleven years, we were right on the money.  It’s been a hugely successful and enjoyed event by all involved.  If you haven’t participated in it, stop by and see what it’s all about.  You’ll immediately understand and find yourself swept up in the vibe.  April 13, 8 am – 9 pm!

 

Not convinced?  Here’s something I see and hear a lot: “Record Store Day is just a money grab by the major labels, who gum up the vinyl pressing plants and prevent the indie labels from getting new vinyl pressed, and the only people who benefit are the eBay flippers.”  Well, we’re in upside down land now, as basically the opposite of that is true.  There are plenty of new pressing plants now, and while 3-4 years ago, getting records repressed could take a while, today that’s really not an issue.  This year, 2/3 to 3/4 of RSD releases are from indie labels.  And flipping RSD titles on eBay is a total loser’s game.  The more people who try to do it just make it harder for each other.  What invariably happens is, for some records, there is a small window of time where copies can sell for ridiculous prices, but equilibrium is quickly reached after a couple of days and most titles trade online for roughly their original sticker price quickly thereafter. 

 

Monster has participated in every Record Store Day, and we know our customers pretty well.  The vast majority are actual music consumers.  If the flippers numbered more than 1 out of every 100 people in the door, I’d be astonished. 

 

Ok, enough of all that, what are we doing this RSD, & how are we doing it?  First of all, standard rules are that sales of RSD titles are limited to one per title per customer.  They’re just too limited in number, & we have to be fair & give everyone a crack.  There is no holding or reserving of them, and no preordering.  You must be present to purchase them & we will not do any phone orders that day.  We will have everything spread out over multiple display racks, and as there are about 400 new titles that day, things do get just a little bit clustered and chaotic.  But everyone’s respectful of each other & folks help each other find the things they’re looking for.  We’ll have multiple staff members on the floor doing the same.  And each year we learn a little bit, and we feel we’ll have things spread out satisfactorily and the mash of people will be minimized this year. 

 

We open at 8 am on Record Store Day, and people will arrive early to form a line.  A few strong wills end up getting here at 2 or 3 am, but the largest part of the line doesn’t fall into place until after 7.  If there’s something you’re dying to get and are wondering what time to arrive, I’d say if you get here around 6 you’re likely in pretty good shape.  And even if it’s a little later than that, I wouldn’t worry too much.  And we have some bonus good news - we’ve contracted with Bottleneck Coffee who will be on site giving out FREE COFFEE to the first 100 people in line. 

 

In addition to the new exclusive vinyl, we’ll have thousands of fresh used records available for sale. We’ve had some great purchases lately, and we expect to have everything priced & put out by then.  Tons of used CDs & DVDs too, & all of it’s on sale.  All new CDs, DVDs & vinyl will be 20% off all day (excepting the exclusive RSD releases), 20% off turntables, 30% off shirts, posters, Pops & other pop culture ephemera, and 40% off all used CD, DVD & vinyl.  Weather permitting, we’ll have our sidewalk sale with thousands of used records & CDs for $0.25 each.

 

Somewhere between 10 and 12, food trucks will start arriving and setting up.  We’ve got some good ones this year – Doughboys (pizza), Greek’n Out, Krystyna’s Polish Food, and Annie O Love Granola.  We’ll have a jump castle for the kiddos, so you can justify spending extra time browsing records.  And Charleston Animal Society will be on site doing one of their adoption drives.  We’ve had then several years now, and it’s a joy to watch folks adopt their new best friends.  Gotta say, what better way to live your life than listening to records and playing with a good dog?

 

Starting at Noon, we’ll have a day full of live, local music for you.  Inn Vinegar kicks it off, followed by Hujai, Orange Doors, B. Fraser, Mode Low, Whitehall, and Missy & the Meerkats.  Check out our Facebook event page for more details about the bands and links to their music. 

 

Our staff is working from 7 am to 9 pm, not to mention all the set up and lead up that precedes the day, and we’ll do our very best to make the day memorable for you.  We love it, but it’s a butt kicker when it’s all said and done.  Maybe buy us a beer if you think we do a good job.

 

As for the actual RSD releases, we’ve ordered every single one.  We’re pretty savvy & make pretty good educated guesses about what everyone’s going to want.  There’s always something we order 20 of and get 2, since the labels have to spread them out to all the stores who ordered it, but for the most part we expect we’ll have TONS of vinyl you’re looking for.  And if you’re not sure what’s even coming out, head over to the RSD site for THE LIST.  The releases are scrutinized and approved by a select group of record store owners, and we feel they’ve done an especially good job this year. 

 

Whatever remains unsold the day after – Sunday the 14th – we will make available for online and phone sales.  We do not put them on eBay and do not price-gouge.  If you have to work Saturday, definitely stop by Sunday or even Monday.  We’ll still have a few goodies. 

 

Something we didn’t cover?  Hit us up on Facebook, Instagram, email, phone or in person.  We want you to have a blast & will consider any reasonable request!

 

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September 7, 2018

It's been too long since our last soapbox rambling, cloud-yelling.  We are so sorry.  Stopping to write a blog when you're busy trying to run a store and everything else in life is, well, let's just say it doesn't happen much.  Wish it could be otherwise.  Anyway, so glad you could join us!

 

You are undoubtedly aware that record stores were assumed dead a decade or so ago, as the age of downloading usurped CD sales.  Much has been written about this, but take a step back and one sees that the record industry's wounds over the decades have been largely self-inflicted.  Failure to cope with Napster and suing their own customers was a prime example.  In the ensuing decade, we've seen a much-ballyhooed vinyl resurgence, leading to a new healthy crop of record stores.  Paid downloads are being killed by streaming, and CDs are holding their own, as customers with home stereo systems are often including them in their listening habits.

 

But leave it to the industry to find a way to find a way to eat its own tail, again.  This year has witnessed a frustrating array of digital-only "surprise" releases, where major artists such as Jay-ZNas - and too many others to recollect - release (or their labels do) a new album without pre-publicity, for streaming or download only, so as to create a buzz.  And if we're lucky, there's a scramble to press a physical release.  Sometimes they're able to turn the CD around in a week, but sometimes a month or more.  Of course there's no way to turn vinyl around quickly, so that takes months.  And what urgency there was for customers to pick up a physical copy wanes as time passes, reviews come in, other new things take front and center position.  

 

Tough for us, you might say.  Get with the program.  The paradigm has changed, the marketplace has shifted.  

 

Ok, except when the morning last week when the new Eminem album was announced as having dropped at midnight (digital only, naturally), we had ten people within the first hour of business come in looking for it, and we probably looked like idiots because we didn't have it.  The lesson to us is, there's still a market for physical!  We see it every day.  That's why we're still here, after all, and promote new music in this email every week.  To us, it's foolhardy, inane, and self-defeating that when a surprise release is planned, there's no thought given to physical production.  If little old us misses 50 sales the first week, then we contend the artist & label don't know a significant subset of their own target customers.  

 

So why doesn't the music industry care?  Well, there's two schools of thought.  One is that as the CD started to really head south in the early 2000s, the labels, in a cost-saving move, got rid of most of their heritage employees and replaced them with young people who had never bought a CD in their lives and whose underlying mission was to embrace the digital revolution.  The old guard understood how the business worked. The new ones didn't.  Physical stores started getting totally ignored.  We really had to fight tooth and claw to get any attention.  And the end result today is that the folks at the labels (admittedly broad-brush painting here) still don't have a frame-of-reference that includes what place physical stores and physical media have in the marketplace.

 

The second thought is more onerous.  Some say the labels WANT us gone.  They make much more money (potentially) on streaming, and they wish in their heart of hearts that they didn't have to deal with physical.  And that's why vinyl is so expensive.  Make a ton a money on it while it's hot but drive it into the ground and poke it with a sharp, hot stick when it's almost dead.

 

Well, that's all a little dramatic, but the fact remains that our industry is in a lot of chaos, and record stores are still getting short shrift.  And when something that could move a lot of units for us, like a new Eminem, is released digital-only, we get pretty pissed off.  The common thread throughout the last forty years in the music biz is that money's more important than artistry to the powers that be. And that seems to be the guiding principle even today.

 

March 9, 2018

Record Store Day HQ released the LIST of this year's exclusive releases this past week! There are something like 450 releases that day, items available only at independent record stores.  Details on how it all works at Monster in a minute, but a few highlights of RSD 2018 include live recordings from The National, Fleet Foxes, and Rage Against the Machine, a new collaboration between Brian Eno and Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), a premier vinyl release of Arcade Fire's self-titled debut EP, and RSD ambassadors Run the Jewels will release a Stay Gold metal box set featuring a clear etched vinyl 12-inch with Marvel Comics branding, an RTJ slipmat, and sticker. We really encourage you to visit the RSD website and check out the list for yourself!  In addition to these crazy good RSD titles, we'll be having store-wide sales, live music, a food-truck rodeo, jump castles, Charleston Animal Society adoption clinic (puppies!) and plenty more fun and frivolity! Mark your calendars-- April 21st!

 

We’re already getting lots of calls and questions about what titles we’re getting and how many, so we wanted to take a minute and give everyone the straight poop on how it all works at Monster!  Of the 450 or so new releases available that day, we are ordering EVERY ONE OF THEM.  Some of them are going to be in high demand and limited supply, and we generally can guess which ones those are going to be (though if there’s a title you’re keen on, DEFINITELY let us know) and we generally order a bunch.  Most of the time we get what we order, but there are usually titles we’ll order 10 of and get 2, so that can present a problem.  There are very few titles we get skunked on altogether.  It happens now and then.  But the lesson is – if you want it, we’ve ordered it and expect at least a couple copies.

       

We open at 8 am on RSD (April 21), and people will line up in advance.  A few motivated souls usually get here around 4 or 4:30, but it’s between 7 and 8 when the line really grows.  We will have a food truck offering coffee and pastries, so it’ll be good times.

 

We cannot and will not take preorders or reservations on these releases.  It’s just not fair to everyone, and it’s also just not practical for us.  We also limit customers to 1 copy per title, so you’re not going to be able to purchase two or more of anything, even if your friend can’t make it out.  Titles are super limited, and once they’re gone, they’re gone, and we can’t allow folks to horde multiple copies.  Again, it’s just not fair to everyone.

 

Like it or not, the reality of the way markets work is that there will be enterprising souls who think they’re going to buy stuff from us and resell it online.  That’s generally people’s number one complaint about RSD.  Don’t get yourself all worked up about it, though – the joke’s on them, in my opinion.  A lot of RSD titles do fluctuate in online price pretty wildly for the first couple of days, but they come back down to earth in short order, and the flippers end up losing money on whatever they haven’t sold.  And the more flippers who try to get in on the act, the harder they make it for themselves.

 

So just relax, enjoy the day.  Hang out for a while & meet some new friends.  You’ll get a few records you wanted, if not everything.  The point is to appreciate the music culture we’ve all tried to help foster in Charleston, and we’d like to think going to the record store is part of that.  We do appreciate your support!

 

Still got questions?  Call us, message us on Facebook or Twitter, or just stop by & we'll do our best to inform!

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February 9, 2018

 

The news story circulated this week that Best Buy will discontinue selling CDs this summer.  The reaction of many record stores, including ourselves, was basically "Pfft, what took them so long?"  In case you haven't noticed, in recent years they've shrunk their CD section and moved it farther and farther back.  You could find a better selection at some truck stops.

 

But we've seen a lot of talk and confusion about it online, from "the end of an era" to "sad" but also "who buys CDs anymore, anyway?"  As Flavor Flav said, "Don't believe the hype."  

 

First of all, Best Buy has been de-emphasizing CDs for years.  Ten & fifteen years ago, they used them as a "loss leader" - selling them below cost to get you in the door so they could sell you a high-dollar appliance.  With the rise of the digital download came an obvious decline in CD sales, and they found themselves devoting more square footage to the format than made sense.  In the last couple of years, their CD selection has been limited to the top 200 new releases, some cheap core catalog, and some even cheaper greatest hits packages.  Today, you probably couldn't find even 500 titles there.

 

It's estimated that Best Buy sells $40 Million in CDs annually.  But they have 1026 stores nationwide, so that averages out to less than $40,000 in sales per store in a year, or around $3000 per month.  Um, that's really bad!  What that tells me is that people have already stopped going to Best Buy for CDs.  The decision was already made for them.  So there's not really any news here.

 

The interesting business story behind the curtain is twofold.  One, what CDs have represented to Best Buy in recent years is advertising revenue from the record labels.  Their weekly sale flyer with pictures of new release CDs and DVDs is a money generator.  So by discontinuing CDs, what they're losing isn't sales, but a revenue source.

 

Two, the record labels have for years been afraid of losing that sales channel.  They've been dependent on shipping lots of units to big box stores.  However, the handwriting has been on the wall for some time, so I have to assume the labels have made their peace with that eventuality and are prepared.

 

The whole point of all of this isn't to slam Best Buy.  I've actually had pretty good experiences buying electronics from them.  But what invariably happens when the media reports an item like this is that the general public totally misconstrues what's going on.

 

What's going on, as it affects you, is... well, not much.

 

Except for this - not only are we going to continue to sell CDs, we're actually adding to our CD inventory.  We're currently evaluating what's available to us from a wide variety of different distributors and plugging some holes in the catalog here and there.  We're also realizing what a great source of inventory there is from import sources.  The European record labels have a lot of great titles in print that are out of print in the US, at really great prices.  

 

So stop by over the next couple of months and see for yourself. You'll start finding a lot of CDs that you haven't run across in years.  Decades even.  And that's all to say nothing of the used CDs.  We're still buying them hand-over-fist.  If you have collections you don't listen to anymore, bring them to us & we'll make you an offer.  (Can't say that about your iTunes collection, can you?)

 

Ok, you might say, really guys this is all quite well and good, but why should I care?  Quite simple.  One, CDs on a nice sound system generally sound really good, much better than what you'd stream or download.  I know audiophiles who say they sound better than vinyl.  Two, once you buy a CD, it's yours.  You don't have to worry about the streaming service losing the licensing deal and it disappears, or it's suddenly not in your iTunes library anymore.  Or your hard drive crashes.  Or you can't find it online at all.  You can listen to the CD where you want, when you want, and when you tire of it, you can sell it back.  

 

Three, there will be a CD resurgence one day, you know there will.  It might not be as drastic and fantastic as the vinyl resurgence, but I'll bet it'll be stronger than the cassette revival.

 

Our friends at Zia Records in Las Vegas and Phoenix referenced the Best Buy story online and called out "We will keep selling CDs as long as you keep buying them."  Our sentiments exactly.  

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August 11, 2017

Hey!  We have a follow-up for you.  Hopefully you read our piece two weeks ago,  a response to a Wall St Journal article touting the beginning of the end of vinyl.  We took issue with their reporting, and we liked it so much we made it our first blog post

 

To recap, the article claims that since vinyl sales are up only 2% in the first half of the year and because some records are mastered off of CD files, that people are fed up with the inferior quality of vinyl and it’s thankfully now in decline, soon to die for good.  Wow, what a take, right?  We gently debunked that in our own way in our blog, so we’re not going to do it again here.

 

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who felt the article needed debunking.  In fact, the writer has been accused of making up facts and quotes to support his anti-vinyl position.  Michael Fremer at Analog Planet, one of the subjects interviewed by the WSJ writer, blasted the piece as blatant fitting the facts to fit your own narrative, which it obviously was.

 

What’s great about being in the indie record store business is that we don’t put up with a lot of crap.  When someone in the media has something negative to say – which has happened all too many times in the last decade or so – we’re not afraid to get up on our soapbox and occasionally be annoying in response.  But it’s so totally worth it.

 

A couple of years ago, we started having customers ask “what are you going to do when they stop making CDs?”  The first couple of times, this struck us as odd but misinformed and totally out of left field.  But it kept happening, so something was clearly in the air.  “Oh yes,” we were told, “I heard the record companies announced they’re going to close their CD pressing plants.”

 

“News to us,” we replied, “as well as to everyone we know at the record companies!”

 

It turns out that someone somewhere in the blogosphere did, in fact, write a piece claiming with certitude that CD pressing plants were officially going to be killed.  Somehow this got picked up as fact and got tossed around at various news agencies. 

 

But then an enterprising soul went and tracked back to the original writer of the piece, and pressed him on it.  And guess what?  The guy admitted making the whole thing up!

 

So you see what we’re up against here? 

 

What I think we’re running across is inevitably someone’s internal bias unconsciously (or not) influencing his job performance.  We all do it, right?  Most young journalists’ frame of reference today is the digital download.  A good chunk of folks in the 25-35 age range today grew up not having any reason to know record stores existed.  But we’ve been witnessing a change in the last several years, that of vinyl re-entering the public consciousness.  And it’s a big deal to the youth of today.

 

So hopefully another 10-15 years hence, young journalists will have grown up listening to vinyl, articles about our industry won’t be so condescending and negative, and we’ll have a little wind behind our sails for a change!

 

Last thoughts on this – We told you so!

 

 

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July 28, 2017

Got a minute?

 

We have something on our mind.  It’s about vinyl, vinyl sales, and media criticism. 

 

A decade or so ago when a bunch of record store people got together and dreamed up Record Store Day, it was all about the narrative the media had an autopilot for years – “no one buys CDs anymore, record stores are dead, and good riddance to the old days.”  That type of thing was reported so commonly, it became accepted dogma.  Except it wasn’t true. 

 

We were able to change the conversation.  Not only are record stores alive, they’re important community gathering places and a lot of fun.  And once that message started permeating, people started figuring out that vinyl’s pretty darn cool, sales skyrocketed, one thing led to another and here we are today.

 

Back where we started.  The Wall St Journal published a piece this week entitled “Why Vinyl’s Boom is Over”.  I’ve seen it referenced on social media several times already, generally with a quip like “See, I knew vinyl was a fad, it’s finally dead, good.  Oh, and I’m not a hater.”  I have a rule that arguing with a fool = two fools arguing, but it’s really hard not to challenge obvious poor reporting and errant conclusions drawn. 

 

Ok, let’s start with the title.  Why did the WSJ report the “Boom is Over”?  Because Nielsen (Soundscan) reported vinyl sales up only 2% over the first half of 2017.  Now, I can’t not mention that Soundscan doesn’t poll most small indie stores, which has been responsible for a lot of the run-up in new store openings and sales growth, and their data has been a source of skepticism for some over the years as a result.  However, how dim do you have to be to read “Boom is Over” and infer that to mean sales are declining?  An increase is an increase.  I can think of several industries that would be thrilled with a 2% increase.  And oftentimes declines in growth are simply reflecting a necessary repositioning of the marketplace and give air to future increases in growth.  We see this all the time in the overall economy.

 

But the article itself wasn’t so much about vinyl, as it was about Gillian Welch and David Rawlings reissuing their 2011 album “Harrow & the Harvest” on vinyl and making sure to use the original analog tapes and quality equipment.  We absolutely applaud this effort, and lots of other artists and labels make sure to do the same.  It’s true, and it’s a damn shame, that some vinyl pressed today is sourced from the digital tapes.  Which totally defeats the purpose, and we generally look at the practice with a healthy amount of disdain.  However, in some cases, analog tapes no longer exist or are not in good enough condition, so it can’t be completely avoided. 

 

We can argue it all day, so there’s not much point, but there is no freakin’ way that the slowdown in vinyl’s growth is due to customers growing tired of poor quality vinyl as a result of using digital source material, as the article suggests.  It also cites high prices, and that is very likely a factor.  There are always multiple factors in constant play, and it’s all too easy to draw an overgeneralized conclusion.  Price does matter; we’ve heard it from you, we’ve passed it along to the labels, and the labels are starting to get religion about it.  Plus, with more and more pressing plants coming online, we hope the added competition will drive down the cost of manufacturing, which will ultimately trickle down to the consumer.  We’ll have to see.

 

But hold the phone a minute.  The Wall St Journal did another article about vinyl on June 29th, wherein they say “Vinyl is experiencing a renaissance as younger music lovers embrace the perceived warmer, more vivid sound —and the more tactile connection to music than digital downloads offer.”  Not even a month before the Gillian Welch article. 

 

So I’m confused.  Is vinyl experiencing a renaissance, or is the vinyl boom over?  I don’t think it can really be both.

 

But anyway.  Who really reads between the lines?  Most people are inclined to see the headline and assume the worst if there’s any negative at all.  “Oh, the boom is over, I knew it was too good to be true.  It was a fad after all, just like Beanie Babies and the Shamwow.” 

 

Ok, hold that thought.  Let’s move over to another respected financial publication, Forbes.  They reported in January that 2017 vinyl sales are projected to reach 40 million, with sales hitting 1 billion for the first time this millennium, and we will see a seventh consecutive year of double-digit sales growth.   Regardless of whether this comes to pass, would you agree that if we’re even in the ballpark of $1B in sales, that’s way beyond the level fads generally reach?  It’s all in how you report it, isnt’ it?

 

Vinyl is no more a fad than CDs were – their heyday lasted just a short 20 years or so – or the digital download, sales of which are declining by double digits today after surpassing physical sales for the first time just 5 years ago.  We’ll be the first to agree that the high-flying days of the 80s and 90s, when billions of albums and CDs were sold annually, are gone for good.  Ain’t coming back.  But vinyl has carved out a niche today that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. 

 

Oh, and by the way, don’t forget about the CD.  Sales have been declining for years, it’s true, but in 2016 they still generated 104.8 million unit sales.  Bet you didn’t realize CD sales are still way out ahead of vinyl!  How can that be, all the press, love and attention vinyl gets?  My customers are always surprised when I tell them CDs still outsell LPs for us.

 

Again, that’s what happens when you control the narrative.  How easily we are manipulated by the headlines we read!  Journalists tasked with reporting the story often aren’t careful enough to make sure you’re not going to leap to unintended conclusions.  It’s entertainment, it’s a fluff piece, and we’re just going to report something different next month anyway, so who cares?

 

That really wouldn’t get my goat so much if there weren’t immediately faceless people out of the woodwork who call out “See, what did I tell you!  It was a fraud all along.”

 

Anyway, believe what you want to believe.  But we’re not going anywhere.  The industry changes as it always has, and we’ll continue to adapt to it.  But we have never gotten out of the vinyl business, even during the 90s and 00s, and expect to stay in it as long as we’re here.  And we’re in the process of renewing our lease, so that should tell you something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        
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